Sad to hear that poet and nobel laureate has died in hospital in Dublin, yesterday morning, after a short illness, aged 74, following a stroke that he had in 2006.
From his first major collection 'Death of a Naturalist (1966) he was to become a colussus in the poetry world.Born on a farm near Toomebridge, in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, he was a magnificent communicator of global significance. His early works examined the implication of having been born into a society deeply divided along religious and political lines. This gave him a deep preoccupation with the question of poetry's responsibility and pregoratives in the world, and is now considered to be one of the most important poets of the modern age. His works were often meditations on the intersection of personal choice and loss with the larger forces of history and politics.Virtuosity and truth, the one useless without the other, are also hallmarks of his poetry. He also saw the role of the artist to give voice to those who are oppressed and the ignored,believing that art was driven by empathy, thus being a great supporter of Amnesty International and the Palestinian people, being the Patron of the Palestine Literature Festival.
A huge loss to the cultural hub of Ireland and the world. His words inspiring hope in a seemingly hopeless world.
He is survived by his wife Marie and three children.
The following poem , describes a drive along the Clare coast. It is a meditation on the fate of being a poet. He does not park but drives on through the glittering scene, and sees the dazzle of light on the sea, on the other side of the road, the lake. Magnificent stuff! So sad that he has gone, but his words will never fade.
Postscript
And some time makes the time, to drive out west Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, In September or October, when the wind And the Light are working off each other So that the ocean on one side is wild With foam and glitter, and inland among stones The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans, Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white, Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads Tucked or cresting or busy underwater. Unless to think you'll park and capture it More thouroughly. You are neither here nor there, A hurry through which known and strange things pass As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways And catch the heart of guard and blow it open.
Watch the above video to see what Martin Luther King might have said to Obama about attacking Syria.
This is the Martin Luther King that Barak Obama, who is waging several wars - In Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, etc, wants you to forget
Today marks the anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King Jr's famous 'I Have a Dream Speech, still resonating deep into the American psyche. The clergyman was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement, whose great progress has made him an icon for human rights causes across the globe.When President Kennedy brought the Civil Rights Bill before Congress in 1963, King made a speech on television on 11 June, in which he said:-
' The Negro baby born in America today regardless of the section of the nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day; one third as much chance completing college; one third as much chance of becoming a professional man; twice as much chance of becoming unemployed; about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is even shorter; and the progress of earning only half as much.'
In an attempt to persuade Congress to pass Kennedy's proposed legislation, King and other civil rights leaders organised the famous March on Washington for jobs and freedom. The march 50 years ago was a huge success with estimates of the crowd varying between 250,000 to 400,000. King was the final speaker and outlined his vision of American racial harmony in a historic display of oratory, in the style of a fervent Baptist preacher.
Just months before he was assassinated, Dr King, was to take these ideas further, whilst organising support for the "Poor Peoples Campaigns," aimed at supplementing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with a full measure of economic and human rights for America's poor, arguing that African-Americans and poor whites were natural allies and if they worked together they could help change society.
But 50 years laters, despite some victory's and gains, the march for equality is unfinished, and for some the dream is unrealised, and as tens of thousands of people marched to Dr King's memorial last Saturday, some pledged that his dream included equality for gays, latinos, the poor and the disabled, and we must remember our modern failures and wrongs, taking for instance, the way an all-white jury in Florida cleared George Zimmerman of murdering the black teenager Tayvon Martin, the persistently high unemployment among America's black population, twice that of white Americans.
We cannot let go of Dr King's dream, because, surely it is everybody's dream, we must continuously try to change the world, remember those in the U.S.A fighting for jobs and freedom, a land still lanquishing to find itself, while perpetrating injustice, discrimination and inequality.A country that imprisons more of their citizens than any other country in the world. African Americans in particular, though they are 12% of the population, make up 38% of the state prison population, despite their crimes being no different from their white and hispanic counterparts.
Despite much positive change, the struggle continues, and we must continue pushing and shoving and let freedom ring.
' Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today,my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold those truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Missisipi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governeor having his lips dripping with the words of 'interposition' and 'nulification' - one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
i have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain, shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day - this will be the day when all of God's children, will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my father died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Missisippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
Martin Luther King Jr - I Have A Dream Speech August 28, 1963 Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C
Once upon a time,
when man was born,
I imagine our first ancestors,
facing endless nights in darkness,
hours of waiting, for a light to reveal,
strangers footprints, the sound of laughter,
sailing through the air,
vistas of companionship.
Stored knowledge on a cave wall,
as voices learnt to sing,
discovered the rules of love,
sought progress, and the elements,
needed for survival,
water, air, earth and fire,
infinity's keys opening locks,
smoke signals rising across continents,
in innocent time, before the kiss
of ideology,
and the need for cant and fear,
in past seasons, as wind lifted hope,
perhaps these little things,
are all we ever needed,
to help us understand.
Throughout the suffering Manning has had to endure so far, from inhuman solitary confinement to a widely publicised military court martial,the mainstream media has somehow neglected to cover this defendents greatest inner struggle. That she had been forced to live as a he throughout it all. One day after being sentenced to 25 years in prison , the Army Private the world knows as Bradley Manning issued a statement about who she really is. " As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning, I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy treatment as soon as possible. I hope you will support me in this transition. I also reqeust that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and the use of the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility.' The US army is refusing to give Chelsea Manning the hormone therapy she has requested. I strongly object to this situation and believe Chelsea deserves the treatment she wants. Chelsea Manning should have her crushing 35 year sentence commuted by President Obama to the three and a quarter years she's already spent behind bars awaiting trial and sentence. Manning is likely to serve her time at Fort Leavenworth, which does not offer hormone therapy or sex-reassignent surgery to prisoners, I just hope that the authorities see sense and do the right thing. Mannings's leak of military data was driven, she says, by 'love for our country and a sense of duty for others'. and there was an undeniable interest in the public knowing more about the conduct of the US military in Iraq and in places like Afghanistan. With the Apache helicopter killings for instance, Reuters haas sought release of the cockpit video via Freedom of Information legislation, a route that proved totally unsuccessful. Sometimes leaks are the only way. Though Manning will be eligible for parole after serving a third of her sentence, many are finding the sentence completely disproportionate when compared to the sentences given to other soldiers convicted of more serious crimes such as murder. So in the meantime we must raise our voices, shouting free Chelsea Manning.
' It is dangerous to be right in matters in which the established autorities are wrong' - Voltaire
After 3 years, 12 weeks and 4 days , Bradley has escaped the death penalty, it is still too long for someone who in my opinion has done no wrong, jailed for being a conscientious human, for speaking the truth, jailed because his voice cared, and because being brave refused to succumb to silence.
Bradley Manning's has been sentenced to 35 years in military prison, Manning's civilian defense attorney read a statement from Manning, which will be included in a filing requesting a pardon from President Obama.
In this deeply moving testimony Coombs also describes what Manning was like after the sentence was announced. He recounted how he and his other defense attorneys had been crying. Manning looked at him and said, " It's okay, it's alright. I know you did your best. I'm going to be okay. I'm going to get through this."
Mannings's remarks to Coombs once again give an indication of the resolve and strong character that Manning has as a a human being.
Please sign this petition and stand together with Bradley Manning.
We owe him our thanks and gratitude for all the service he has done for humanity.
I will continue to support any further transition, until freedom is gained.
'The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of the concern for my country, and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war. We have been at war with an enemy that chooses not to meet us on a trasitional battlefield. Due to this fact, we've had to alter our methods of combatting the risk posed to us and our way of life.
I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help fefend our country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we are doing. It wwas at this time that I realsed that our efforts to meet the risk posed to us by the enemy, we had forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue life both in Irag and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we percieved were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent children, instead of accepting resposibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.
In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.
Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionabble acts are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown out any logically based dissension, it is usually an American soldier that is given the order to carry out some ill-concieved mission.
Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtue of democracy - the Trial of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism and the Japanese-American Internment camps - to mention a few. I am confident that many of the actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.
As the late Howard Zinn once said, there is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
I understand that my actions violated the law. I regret thsat my actions hurt anyone or harmed the Unite States. It was never my intent to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did out of a love for my country and my sense of duty to others.
If you deny my request for pardon, I will serve my request knowing that some time you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have a country that is truly conceieved in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.'
On Thursday 8th August, musician Nigel Kennedy performed at the Proms with the Palestine Strings - a group of young Palestinian musicians from the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music.
Towards the end of the concert, Kennedy said "We all know from experiencing this night of music tonight that giving equality and getting rid of apartheid, gives a beautiful chance for amazing things to happen."
A recording of the concert was due to be aired on Friday 23d August at 7.30 pm.
Following ressure from pro-occupation lobbyists, including Baroness Deech, the Jewish chronicle has announced that the BBC will be cutting Kennedy's remarks from the televised broadcast amounting to political censorship on the part of the BBC
The article says the BBC confimed on Tuesday that his remarks would be edited out of the concert when it is shown on BBC 4 on August 23.
I believe to cut these comments would be an act of political censorship, seeing as there was nothing in Kennedy's actions or comments that were innacurate or untruthful. I believe that Mr Kennedy acted out against apartheid and have complained to the BBC about it's stance which you can do here:-
Suppressing free speech and political dissent is the norm for state broadcasters under dictatorships. It gets kind of worrying when we start to see this kind of supression being practiced by our own state broadcater the BBC.
Interesting article here, which helps define apartheid in relation to Israel.
'Nigel Kennedy finds it incredible and quite frightening that in the 21st century it is still such an insurmountable problem to call things the way they are. He thinks that once we can all face issues for what they really are we can finally have a chance of finding solutions to problems such as human rights and even, prhaps, free speech. His first reaction to the BBC's censorship & imperial lack of impartiality was to refuse to play for an employee who is influenced by such dubious outside forces.
Mr Kennedy has, however, reminded himself that his main purpose is to provide the audience with the best music, he can deliver. To withdraw his services would be akin to a taxi driver refusing to drive their customer due to their political incorrectness. He, therefore, is not withdrawing his services that he owes to his audience, but is half expecting to be replaced by someone deemed more suitable than him due to their surplas of opportunism and career aspirations.
Mr Kennedy is glad, however, that by censoring him the BBC has created such a huge platform for the discussion of its own impartiality, its respect (or lack of it) for free speech and for the discussion of the miserable apartheid forced on the Palestinian people by the Israeli government supported by so many governments from the outside world.
Mr Kennedy believes his very small statement during his concert was purely descriptive and not political whatsoever."
PSC & Pink Floyd's Roger Waters condemn BBC for 'Political Censorship' over Nigel Kennedy
' I do not bang or blow them about as much as I should, or oil their leather backs, or align those backs properly. They are unregimented. Only at night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, and the lights are turned off, do they come into their own and attain a collective dignity. It is very pleasant to sit with them in the firelight for a couple of minutes, not reading, not even thinking, but aware that that they, with their accumulated wisdom and charm, are waiting to be used, and that my library, in its tiny imperfect way, is a successor to the great private libraries of the past. 'Do you ever lend books?' someone may say in a public-spirited tone of voice at this point. Yes, I do, and they are not returned, and still I lend books. Do I ever borrow books? I do, and I can see some of them unreturned around me. I favour reciprocal dishonesty.'
Cheers and thanks Charles whose birthday would have been today
Alone With Everybody
the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds
fresh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.
there's no chance
at all
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.
nobody ever finds
the one.
the city dumps fill
the jukyards fill
the madhouse fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill
nothing else
fills
Be Kind
we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious,
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with kindliness,
especially if they are
aged
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see,
not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear,
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted life
among so many
deliberatelt
wasted
lives
is.
Oh Yes
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realise this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than t
too late.
